5/6/08 Primaries Results thread

[Guardsman Bass]

Apparently, Clinton has canceled all of her morning talk show appearances; I hope's and indicator that she's done.

I'm guessing that there is going to be a major conference among her campaign leadership, Bill Clinton, and her probably throughout the entire morning on what they should do, and whether they will continue. We'll have to wait and see.

[Fire Fly]

I was just analyzing the results and it seems that even without the superdelegates, even without Michigan and Florida, Obama has a very strong chance of winning the nomination on his own or will at least come without a few dozen delegates of doing so.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Apparently, Clinton has canceled all of her morning talk show appearances; I hope's and indicator that she's done.

Come ON you people you hounestly think Hillay is bowing out because of THIS? shes just got a little egg on her face for "winning" Indian by less then 1%... It simply shows Obamasnot powerful enough to stop her and North Carlina Doesn't count...

[Patrick Degan]

Apparently, Clinton has canceled all of her morning talk show appearances; I hope's and indicator that she's done.

I'm guessing that there is going to be a major conference among her campaign leadership, Bill Clinton, and her probably throughout the entire morning on what they should do, and whether they will continue. We'll have to wait and see.

Too early yet to say whether sanity has begun to creep back into the woman's brain. One can hope, of course...

[Jaepheth]

Ok, going by CNN's primary results page here
with 99% reporting

McCain
317,837
Huckabee
41,018
Paul
31,481
Romney
19,480

Total: 409,816

and then with this source for the 2004 primaries:

George W. Bush - 469,528

That makes on the order of 60,000 unaccounted for republican votes.

If only half of them voted for Clinton, that'd be enough to account for her victory.

[Glocksman]

In case any of you don't know, Indiana is a Republican state as far as Presidential elections are concerned.
The last time we went Democrat was in 1964.

The high numbers of Democratic primary voters versus the low numbers of Republican primary voters tell me two things.

One is that since we have an 'open primary' a lot of voters who normally go Republican crossed over.

Two is that despite Rush Lemming..er.. Limbaugh's attempts to persuade Republicans to cross over and vote for Hillary, a large amount of Repubs and independents crossed over to vote for Obama.

God knows this 'Obamacan' did.

To be honest, I'm surprised that he managed such a close margin here, as the 'veil of ignorance and bigotry' is hard to penetrate in Indiana no matter the educational level of the Hoosier you're talking to.

But then again, I'm basing that on the loudmouths who post on my local paper's website.
Perhaps there is hope for us yet.

[Ender]

Apparently, Clinton has canceled all of her morning talk show appearances; I hope's and indicator that she's done.

I'm guessing that there is going to be a major conference among her campaign leadership, Bill Clinton, and her probably throughout the entire morning on what they should do, and whether they will continue. We'll have to wait and see.

Too early yet to say whether sanity has begun to creep back into the woman's brain. One can hope, of course...

She has a big meeting with superdelegates tomorrow, here's hoping they give her the proverbial Godfather-tollbooth treatment

[Crossroads Inc.]

ANY of you people who think Hillary might change or drop out, read this out of Yahoo...

NDIANAPOLIS - Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged to keep going full throttle for the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday even as she appealed for money to finance her gasping campaign and tried to put the best spin on a disappointing night.

Clinton lost to Barack Obama by a wide margin in North Carolina and managed only a slim win in Indiana, a victory that she held out as evidence that she still has staying power in the race.

"Tonight, we've come from behind. We've broken the tie, and thanks to you, it's full speed on to the White House," Clinton told hundreds of supporters in downtown Indianapolis as former President Clinton and daughter Chelsea stood by her side.

Can you say Stark Raving MAD?

[Crossroads Inc.]

forget link:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080507/ap_on_el_pr/clinton

[Dominus Atheos]

ANY of you people who think Hillary might change or drop out, read this out of Yahoo...

NDIANAPOLIS - Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged to keep going full throttle for the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday even as she appealed for money to finance her gasping campaign and tried to put the best spin on a disappointing night.

Clinton lost to Barack Obama by a wide margin in North Carolina and managed only a slim win in Indiana, a victory that she held out as evidence that she still has staying power in the race.

"Tonight, we've come from behind. We've broken the tie, and thanks to you, it's full speed on to the White House," Clinton told hundreds of supporters in downtown Indianapolis as former President Clinton and daughter Chelsea stood by her side.

Can you say Stark Raving MAD?

And a what time did she give this speech in downtown Indianapolis? Because the election was called for her just a little past midnight central time, and it's 4 am there now.

[Natorgator]

She gave that speech before the results were in. She had an eight point or so lead that dwindled to two. All her morning appearances were canceled after the speech when the gap started closing.

Hopefully she'll wait until after WV to drop out, because it would look bad for Obama as the nominee to get crushed there even after he's won.

[The Original Nex]

ANY of you people who think Hillary might change or drop out, read this out of Yahoo...

NDIANAPOLIS - Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged to keep going full throttle for the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday even as she appealed for money to finance her gasping campaign and tried to put the best spin on a disappointing night.

Clinton lost to Barack Obama by a wide margin in North Carolina and managed only a slim win in Indiana, a victory that she held out as evidence that she still has staying power in the race.

"Tonight, we've come from behind. We've broken the tie, and thanks to you, it's full speed on to the White House," Clinton told hundreds of supporters in downtown Indianapolis as former President Clinton and daughter Chelsea stood by her side.

Can you say Stark Raving MAD?

The rest of her speech was subdued and conciliatory. At this point her campaign is looking for a way to save face when the inevitably drop out.

[Straha]

Apparently, Clinton has canceled all of her morning talk show appearances; I hope's and indicator that she's done.

I'm guessing that there is going to be a major conference among her campaign leadership, Bill Clinton, and her probably throughout the entire morning on what they should do, and whether they will continue. We'll have to wait and see.

Latest report is that she just gave another couple million dollars to her campaign.

Whoop-de-doo.

[Broomstick]

And if I recall, Lake County usually doesn't say jack until all the results are tabulated - it's just that, since we're usually ignored in elections by the rest of the country the media just haven't noticed that until now.

Apparently CNN didn't get the memo, because they are ever so subtly implying there's funny business going on in Lake County.

It's essentially a suburb of Chicago, a city notorious for political corruption in a state notorious for political corruption (most of the prior governors being convicted felons at this point). Of course there's funny business in Lake County politics. In fact, just last year, a good dozen or so elected officials got dumped in jail by the FBI. Predicting political corruption in this area is like predicting sunrises or snow in winter.

[Hotfoot]

Clinton's Campaign just got on a conference call with MSNBC, and is falling back on the same tired "BUT WE WON THE SWING STATES! WE WILL KEEP GOING!" garbage.

The kept bringing up Michigan and Florida, which is getting hilarious, because Obama wasn't even on the ballot in either state. But they "won". Hillary's campaign is flailing. She's over 11 million in the hole, and has virtually nothing to show for it. They keep moving the goalposts and trying to keep it going, and they're making increasingly desperate calls for campaign donations.

[Mr Bean]

The kept bringing up Michigan and Florida, which is getting hilarious, because Obama wasn't even on the ballot in either state. But they "won". Hillary's campaign is flailing. She's over 11 million in the hole, and has virtually nothing to show for it. They keep moving the goalposts and trying to keep it going, and they're making increasingly desperate calls for campaign donations.

Correction he was on the ballet on Florida, but not in Michigan, she won Michigan with 55% percent of the vote despite the fact that it was only her and Kucinnich and "uncommitted" on the ballot.


That said, neither state fucking counts, fuck off to the both of you.

[MKSheppard]

Nope, she ain't out; just saw a LIVE campaign stop on Fox News where she says she'll win blah blah

[cosmicalstorm]

She just got $6 million in contributions (from herself )

Hillary Clinton's struggle to keep her campaign alive is being made tougher by a drying up of donors, forcing her to lend herself $6.4m (£3.2m).

Her poor showing in Tuesday's primaries - losing badly in North Carolina and winning narrowly in Indiana - will make it even harder to attract donors for what many will regard as a doomed campaign.

She has been unable to compete with rival Barack Obama in terms of funding since last year and had to lend her campaign $5m in February. Although her campaign team claimed she raised $10m in 24 hours after winning Pennsylvania last month - sceptics are waiting to see the accounts - her campaign has been running with large debts.

Obama is well placed to seriously outspend her in the six remaining primaries.

Clinton's campaign today indicated that she intended to fight on even as her hopes of winning the Democratic presidential nomination dwindled.

However, in what could prove portentous for the race, former senator and presidential candidate George McGovern switched his allegiance today from Clinton to Obama and urged Clinton to drop out of the race.

After watching the returns from the North Carolina and Indiana primaries Tuesday night, McGovern said it's virtually impossible for Clinton to win the nomination. McGovern, a former South Dakota senator and 1972 Democratic presidential nominee, said he planned to call Bill Clinton to tell him of the decision and said he remains close friends with the Clintons.

She failed to close the gap on Obama in two key primaries last night, winning Indiana by a slim margin - 51% to 49% - but seeing that outweighed by her rival's 56% to 42% landslide in North Carolina.

Indiana provided an exhilarating finish, with the outcome in doubt almost until the last vote was counted, six hours after polling closed.

Obama had prematurely conceded defeat and Clinton made a victory speech, but her margin continued to shrink as the votes kept coming in.

Clinton had needed to win both North Carolina and Indiana, the last two big states left in the contest, to stand a chance of reining in Obama.

But in a speech in Indianapolis last night, she gave no indication that she was ready to concede, saying: "It is full speed to the White House."

Clinton's schedule for today includes a rally in West Virginia, where voters head to the polls next week, and a fundraising event in Washington.

Tomorrow, events are planned in Oregon and South Dakota, which vote on May 20 and June 3.

But with only six primaries left, Obama is within touching distance of securing the Democratic nomination to face the Republican, John McCain, in November's general election.

Last night, Obama secured a bigger share of the delegates - who will choose the nominee - to add to his already commanding lead.

With 99% of the vote counted in Indiana, Clinton had 638,274 (51%) and Obama 615,862 (49%).

Mayor Rudy Clay, an Obama supporter from Gary, north-west Indiana - one of the last places to announce its results - denied there had been any "hanky-panky", but mayor Tom McDermott of Hammond, a Clinton supporter, said there was "a perception of impropriety".

There were no such doubts in North Carolina. With 99% of the vote counted, Obama won a sweeping 890,695 to Clinton's 657,920.

Given her failure to make a breakthrough last night, Clinton will struggle to raise money for the remainder of the campaign and made an appeal for funds.

She could, in theory, keep on fighting all the way to the Democratic party convention in Denver in August.

At an election night party in Raleigh, North Carolina, Obama looked beyond the primaries to the November contest with McCain.

He denounced political pundits who said his contest with Clinton had polarised the party and that Clinton's supporters would not turn out to support him in November.

In exit polls yesterday, one-third of Clinton backers claimed they would vote for McCain if he faced Obama in November. One in five Obama supporters said they would vote for McCain over Clinton.

"Yes, there have been bruised feelings on both sides. Yes, each side desperately wants their candidate to win," Obama said.

"This primary season may not be over, but when it is we will have to remember who we are as Democrats."

He predicted the party would unite behind him in the autumn, adding: "This fall, we intend to march forward as one Democratic party, united by a common vision for this country."

His call for unity was intended to reassure senior Democrats worried about his weakness in failing to finish off Clinton and his failure to connect with white working class voters.

Terry McAuliffe, Clinton's campaign manager, argued that Obama's defeat in Indiana - which borders his home state of Illinois - was a sign of weakness in his candidacy.

"He cannot beat us in these big industrial breadbasket states that you need to win in November, and that's a problem," McAuliffe said.

The breakdown of the vote again highlighted the extent to which the Obama-Clinton contest has divided along racial lines.

While Clinton now has very little support among African-Americans, the results demonstrated Obama's continued difficulties in attracting white voters.

Exit polls showed Clinton won 61% support among white women in Indiana and 58% among white men.

The racial divide was stark in North Carolina, where Obama took 91% of the African-American vote and Clinton only 6%. Around one-third of the Democratic vote in the state is African-American.

The two primaries came after Obama had been on the back foot for the last two months.

Opinion polls in North Carolina last week indicated that his 25% lead at the start of the campaign had withered to single digits.

Last week was his worst since he launched his campaign for the presidency last February.

He was tested by an incendiary public appearance last week by his former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, which pushed race up the agenda.

Among voters polled yesterday, 48% of Democrats in Indiana and 48% in North Carolina said Wright's comments - portrayed in the US media as unpatriotic - were "very" or "somewhat" important to their vote.

White voters tended to say the issue was important, while African-Americans tended to say it was not.

Obama won at least 94 delegates in the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, according to an analysis of election returns by the Associated Press.

Clinton won at least 75 delegates, with 18 still to be awarded.

In the overall race for the nomination, Obama leads with 1,840 delegates, including separately chosen party and elected officials known as superdelegates. Clinton has 1,684. A total of 2,025 delegates is needed to clinch the nomination.

The six remaining primaries remain have only a relatively small number of delegates, 217.

In addition, there are 270 undecided Democratic superdelegates - Congress members and others with an automatic vote.

The populist strategy deployed by Clinton in Indiana and North Carolina will be crucial to her efforts to woo those superdelegates.

Her campaign argues that her success in winning over working class voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania and now Indiana makes her a stronger candidate than Obama against McCain, even though Obama has won the majority of Democratic contests.

In Indiana, the strategy saw Clinton ditching her previous persona of wordly first lady and policy wonk to reinvent herself as a tough, beer-loving heroine of the working classes.

The populist appeal was the most determined effort to date by Clinton to solidify her support among working class white men following her victories in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

[The Original Nex]

HuffPo Exclusive

Hillary Will Drop Out by June 15

Lawrence O'Donnell

Posted May 7, 2008 | 01:18 PM (EST)

A senior campaign official and Clinton confidante has told me that there will be a Democratic nominee by June 15. He could not bring himself to say the words "Hillary will drop out by June 15," but that is clearly what he meant. I kept saying, "So, Hillary will drop out by June 15," and he kept saying, "We will have a nominee by June 15." He stressed what a reasonable person Hillary is.

Everything about our conversation implied that he had already had this reality-based discussion with Hillary. He said the Clinton campaign plan is to collect as many votes and delegates as they can right through June 3, then take no more than a week or so to make their case to the superdelegates. Nothing he said indicated that he actually expected the superdelegates to move to Hillary in the week after the final election. The Clinton campaign has not lost its grip on reality. Yes, Clinton spokespersons publicly seem to be lost on gravity-free planet Clinton, but privately they know the end is near.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Isn't this the point at which Hillary screams 'SOON I WILL BECOME INVINCIBLE!!!' and turns into a snake?

[The Vortex Empire]

She's either in denial, or simply insane. Has nobody told her that it's over for her yet?

[Terralthra]

Isn't this the point at which Hillary screams 'SOON I WILL BECOME INVINCIBLE!!!' and turns into a snake?

The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord, #34: I will not turn into a snake. It never helps.

[Kuja]

Isn't this the point at which Hillary screams 'SOON I WILL BECOME INVINCIBLE!!!' and turns into a snake?

The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord, #34: I will not turn into a snake. It never helps.

#24: I will maintain a realistic assessment of my strengths and weaknesses. Even though this takes some of the fun out of the job, at least I will never utter the line "No, this cannot be! I AM INVINCIBLE!!!" (After that, death is usually instantaneous.)

[CaptainChewbacca]

Hey, I was right, it WAS two separate things to not do.

[RIPP_n_WIPE]

She can't just "drop out". That'd hurt the party. I know that sounds crazy now but listen.

She probably knew she was going to lose as soon as Obama took his amazing 10 straight wins. Unfortunately pride got the best of her and she wanted to keep fighting because the albeit so-fucking-slim-you'd-need-a-several-trillion-universes-to-see-it-happen chance that she might win still prevailed in her mind. It became more and more apparent that she wasn't going to make it and she got more and more desparate. She wanted to win, she wanted to fight, but it wasn't enough. So she threw a temper tantrum and tried to hurt obama with her spinning of everything anyone came up with. But Obama, well I think the below video says it best.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7j2g2axmnY8

But now hillary has built up a base of loyal followers who would be extremely disaffected if she just dropped out. Now that reality has actually come to her it's too late too drop out. Sure you've got people with hillarreah still who will vote McCain even if she loses fair and square. but prayerfully most of those who voted for her aren't douches and will say "Well she gave it a shot" and vote for Obama. But she can't just let them down, she's got to lose fair and square and stick to her own rhetoric (though prayerfully she'll quiet it down and stop the republican wankery).